Barack Obama Is Back on the Campaign Trail. Here's What People Who Saw Him Had to Say

For a few hours on Saturday, September 8, a rare bit of excitement over politics seized Ballroom E at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. Officially a rally for Orange County Democratic congressional candidates, the local candidates were outshone by the guy everyone was talking about, someone who isn’t on a ballot or, for that matter, isn't likely to run for office again in the near future.

Former President Barack Obama was back on the campaign trail over the weekend, using his own considerable star power as a boost to the area’s Democratic congressional candidates. The atmosphere was festive. He was back, and he was here.

“It’s a really pivotal time for Orange County, especially for young people, to get out there and to get engaged and, hopefully, to flip Orange County blue,” Christie Valerie Hwong, an intern for the Orange County Democratic Party who attended the rally, told Teen Vogue. The former president spoke for just under 25 minutes to an audience of 750 supporters and staffers invited by the campaigns. Hwong said Obama’s decision to come to California “shows how important this [is].”

California’s third most populous county has long been a Republican stronghold, but the seven candidates Obama came to support at the event — Josh Harder (CA-10), TJ Cox (CA-21), Katie Hill (CA-25), Gil Cisneros (CA-39), Katie Porter (CA-45), Harley Rouda (CA-48), and Mike Levin (CA-49) — represent the districts seen as key to Democrats’ 2018 midterms strategy in the state. As reported by CNBC, five of the candidates are running in districts located entirely or partially in Orange County.

In April, the Los Angeles Timesreported that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) took the step of establishing a presence in the area by moving some senior staffers, including the group’s political director for the western United States, to Irvine, a city within Orange County.

Obama told supporters about his memories of visiting Disneyland — including being kicked out of the theme park as a teenager for smoking. Members of of the crowd laughed and whooped, many wearing campaign T-shirts and chanting “Yes We Can,” and holding up signs proclaiming “Take It Back.”

"It’s always tempting for politicians, for their own gain and for people in power, to try to see if they can divide people, scapegoat folks, turn them on each other,” Obama said at the California rally, according to Newsweek. “Because when that happens, you get gridlock and government doesn’t work and people get cynical and they decide not to participate.”

“And when people don’t participate, then that vacuum is filled by lobbyists and special interests and we get into a downward spiral where people get more and more discouraged and they think nothing’s going to make a difference,” Obama continued. “And that, unfortunately, has been a spiral that we've been on for the last couple of years.”

“The biggest threat to our democracy is not one individual,” Obama said. “It’s not one Super PAC Billionaire. It’s apathy. It’s us not doing what we’re supposed to do." Cheers of "We love you!" and "We miss you!" and bursts of "Four More Years!" could be heard throughout the room at various points during Obama’s remarks.

“That’s a real president,” Kim Bernice Nguyen, 27, a member of the City Council in nearby Garden Grove, told Teen Vogue, following Obama’s speech. Nguyen said she was optimistic that the work by Democrats to motivate voters in districts with vulnerable Republican incumbents would have a positive effect. “Having all of this attention on us and these resources being dedicated to Orange County is really getting us motivated to get out there and knock on those doors.” Nguyen was elected at 25, is half-Vietnamese and half-Mexican, and is the first Latinx candidate to win a seat on the City Council in her city’s 61-year history.

Ammar Campa-Najjar, a 29-year-old former Obama staffer who is running for Congress in California’s 50th Congressional District, located in San Diego County, also attended the rally. He told Teen Vogue the message his former boss is bringing to the campaign trail is “exactly the tone we need right now for our country. We need to . . . bring people together. Not just Democrats but lifelong Republicans.”

Jahi Jenkins, among the interns from the Orange County Democrats who saw Obama speak, said he thought the president did a good job of highlighting the need to go out and volunteer with campaigns.

“There’s no excuse not to vote,” Jenkins said.

Ariana Arestegui, 27, a law student at Western State College of Law who is also from Garden Grove, agreed. “He really captured the spirit of what this whole campaign cycle up to this point has been about. Everyone getting together, really making sure that their voice is heard to make sure that people . . . get a fair shot at representation.”

Josh Harder, 30, who is running to represent California’s 10th Congressional District and was among those onstage with the president, called Obama’s remarks “a reminder of a not-too-distant past when we had civility in our politics and politicians we could trust.”

“It was amazing to see how Obama was up there in front of hundreds of people, and it felt as if his messages resonated with each of us individually,” 25-year-old Arturo Arestegui, who attended the event with his sister, told Teen Vogue. On his experience with the surge of civic engagement in the lead-up to the midterms — which Obama called on supporters to continue — Arestegui said, “There’s just a vibe that you get. I don’t even know how to put it into words, it’s just such a unique feeling . . . it’s just something incredible.”

That message of engagement echoed throughout the event, and CNBC reported that Obama is expected to take it with him to Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania as part of his push for candidates before the November midterms.

Before Obama took the stage on Saturday, California Democratic Party Chair Eric Bauman told the crowd, “The blue wave starts here.” For the next couple of months, it’s Obama’s wave to surf.